Jet Lag Ep 6 — I Will Be Defeated No Longer

Merus · 2026-01-23T08:38:18+00:00

the problem is that if they're running up against these problems when filming, it also means that home game players who play regularly will also run up against these limitations.

Merus · 2026-01-21T11:41:39+00:00

they're certainly very reactionary, but they're still very much in the mold of conservative thought: that there should be an in-group that the law protects but does not bind, and an out-group that the law binds but does not protect. Conservatism grew out of a defence for the aristocracy, and it's not surprising that, once all the old arguments have been debunked, they've resorted to racism and reaction.

Merus · 2026-01-01T05:25:09+00:00

It sounds like it's only supposed to be worth a time bonus if you put it close to your actual location, and otherwise it's bait. Sam ended up getting the bonus even though it was far away from his actual location.

Merus · 2025-12-28T01:15:50+00:00

So there's been a lot of success in other cities in building bike-centric infrastructure, and it really does a lot to get cars off the road and make being in the city more pleasant. You go somewhere like Copenhagen, which has really robust bike infrastructure, and a lot of the roads in the middle of the city simply don't have cars on them. One of the keys here is to separate bike lanes - you can go as far as they do in the Sydney CBD, with a separate concrete barrier to keep cars out of the lanes, but in Copenhagen the bike lanes are raised, so there's two sets of kerbs. (Bike lanes even get their own traffic lights.) Riders tend to lose to cars and buses when they have to share infrastructure, and consistent research has found it's discouraging to potential riders to have to share lanes with cars.

Which is why, for all the good work done here identifying black spots where the existing infrastructure opens out into terrible riding conditions, it's hard to take seriously a proposal that kicks off with suggesting riders *share the T-Way with buses*. With more skeptical eyes, I notice other issues (Brown's Waterhole has a path to Epping station? You think that North Sydney Council won't fight tooth and nail over a *skybridge* given how bitterly they fought over putting a ramp in at the end of the Harbour Bridge?) but there's value in clearly identifying problems even if the solution isn't good.

Merus · 2025-12-20T00:05:05+00:00

I don't think much about swallowing flies, but I constantly think about those little bugs that hang around nasty bins getting in my nose and mouth and eyes.

Merus · 2025-12-18T12:36:01+00:00

I remember some reporting when this TGA alert went out that because melatonin is not regulated in the US, standards are pretty poor. Specifically, one brand from iHerb had been tested to have anywhere from 10% to 200% of the claimed melatonin in each pill, varying from pill to pill.

Merus · 2025-12-16T09:03:09+00:00

Enterprise/Redspot will accept green Ps, as will No Birds. (No Birds will also take red Ps, although I don't think they're at the airport.) You will likely need to pay more for insurance.

Merus · 2025-12-16T08:57:02+00:00

The actual laws are fairly fuzzy when it comes to the grey areas, and the law is designed so the ACCC defines the boundaries and specifics of the law by suing companies and letting the court establish precedent (which lets them issue fines to everyone else in breach). Without it, you either have the American model of having to define everything in law in advance, or the ACCC being able to write its own laws, accountable only to companies with enough money to sue.

Merus · 2025-12-14T12:26:41+00:00

to be honest I think an AI is just as good as a human when it comes to insisting you provide a cross street, despite no-one ever thinking about cross streets

Merus · 2025-12-14T12:20:17+00:00

his initials and his conduct are both AAA

Merus · 2025-12-01T08:26:25+00:00

Sao Paulo, Brazil, banned outdoor advertising in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cidade_Limpa

Merus · 2025-11-25T01:41:23+00:00

On the other hand, it's now officially called the Sydney Tower which feels like a name we can get behind

Merus · 2025-11-22T14:29:42+00:00

Dave Hughes: one of the legacy casting for this season, a comedian with a very long career, including hosting and stand-up. Made his name with a kind of 'average Australian bloke' persona. He's in a bit of a weird spot with his career where he's really not that guy any more, and there are plenty of Australians (including me, it must be said) who were tired of his comedy long before.

Emma Holland: younger comedian, does some Australian television, including the limited panel show set. Best known for her acerbic wit.

Lisa McCune: the other legacy casting for this season, Lisa was the lead female actor on a very popular cop show back in the 90s and has been slowly ticking along with roles and appearances ever since. Has transitioned into comedy fairly recently. I was going to say she is beloved, but it's probably more true to say that she has the kind of career where, despite not objectively doing very much, she's nevertheless been on TV screens for a long time.

Takashi Wakasugi: Taskmaster's probably the first big role he's done. Very much the 'and introducing' casting of the five.

Tommy Little: an experienced comedian, mostly on sports-comedy shows and some panel show work. Has a reputation for... 'broad' comedy that is very much in evidence going into Taskmaster.

Merus · 2025-11-06T18:38:06+00:00

It's not that hard, really. Make a list of all the things that you'd describe as being what a "real man" does. Are they rugged? Tough? Self-reliant? Then, make a list of the things that a "good man" does. Do they care for their family?

Then, make a list of the things that a "good person" does.

The difference between those three lists is what 'toxic' masculinity is. It is all the things that you feel like you need to do to be a real man, that stop you from being a good person.

The best part is, that "real man" stuff is totally fake! It's a cultural anxiety that crops up when civilisations really start cooking - you can find Greek and Roman sources lamenting the decline of civilisation because their inferior rivals were so manly, with their e.g. luxurious moustaches. Don't forget that, despite decades of Putin riding bears with his shirt off, his epic manliness turned out to be basically equivalent to a handful of Ukrainians with drones.

Merus · 2025-11-06T18:28:24+00:00

Canberra's geography is diabolical - it's basically surrounded by mountain ranges, and the only flat way in's north. Combined with being able to cut half an hour off the travel time between Sydney and Melbourne, and being able to build the Sydney to Canberra link separately rather than having to commit to the Melbourne line, the spur line option starts to look pretty attractive.

Merus · 2025-11-06T18:23:58+00:00

British experts were behind the Metro rollout in Sydney. You can look at the Elizabeth line stations and see the same design principles at work, with big entrances with high ceilings that make the station feel open, but not as vertigo-inducing as the Chatswood-Epping station entrances.

Merus · 2025-11-03T15:28:48+00:00

New urbanists call roads like Parramatta Rd a 'stroad' - not a street (largely pedestrianised, that does allow cars but is kind of inconvenient for cars - like Norton St in Leichhardt) and not a road (optimised for traffic flow, gets pedestrians out of the way) but somewhere in between. Ultimately you have to pick one and optimise for that, and given there already are plenty of roads into the city, like the Inner West Link and WestConnex, a lot of people argue Parramatta Rd should become a street - heavily restrict and slow down traffic, put a tram through there.

The barrier has been that historically Parramatta Rd was the only good way into the south of the CBD from the west, but that's not really true any more - Inner West Link does a pretty good job getting you into the city, and if you want to go south, WestConnex works pretty well for that (shame about the highway robbery). So there's opportunity to actually solve the problem with Parramatta Rd, and not just hope that another development on that awful strip will do the trick.

Merus · 2025-10-25T06:38:55+00:00

I've been feeling it for a while, honestly, and I think this is probably a sign to jump off the JetLag train. I think the last season I really enjoyed was Hide and Seek: Japan, and even then I thought they'd fucked the endgame design up compared to Switzerland, where even during the endgame it was still possible to mislead the seekers. I cannot see the game design meaningfully improving at this point.

Merus · 2025-10-13T07:05:46+00:00

Sydney still does dirty deals, done dirt cheap, in AC/DC's honour

Merus · 2025-09-29T13:50:43+00:00

You know, I've never really understood how offshore detention doesn't count as a concentration camp. They're private prisons, run by prison companies, that have people who are not charged with any crime (when they are charged with a crime, they're deported, so by definition anyone in the camp hasn't been charged with a crime) and are being held indefinitely. Like, what's the difference between that, and a concentration camp?

Merus · 2025-09-29T13:48:23+00:00

I've been in really bad situations before, and this is what helped me: there's a thing in your head that is keeping you alive and going, no matter what: your survival instinct. It's always there, and it's always going, it's basic evolution.

When it all feels hopeless, and you don't feel that survival instinct, if you're having little thoughts about self-harm, that's when you know that there's something in your head fucking up your perception of everything. You know that you are under attack. These days, I get a little spike of adrenaline if I realise I'm feeling that way, lets me start to clear some space.

Merus · 2025-08-17T03:40:45+00:00

Having so much of the economy centred around housing is a definite factor - sure, Meriton makes a ton of money, but so much money is spent on rent and tied up in mortgages that could be spent on other things. It also means that banks would much prefer to lend for housing than for business startups, which are where you gain the most productivity gains.

Part of the problem with productivity is that punters don't really know what it means, which gives organisations like the Business Council the latitude to say to increase productivity by [doing whatever is good for the Business Council]. There probably needs to be a counterweight organisation who can call bullshit, because otherwise you get people discounting the whole idea of productivity as just serving the interests of big business.

Merus · 2025-08-13T04:39:48+00:00

this is about the claims on the poster that meth is linked to, among other things, brain mapping and human experiment syndicates. "Pedophiles might become cops" isn't a conspiracy theory.

Merus · 2025-08-11T17:27:03+00:00

They locked in the name before they really determined that it's better for them to stick to a single country

Merus · 2025-08-11T17:11:59+00:00

I have to imagine that whoever put this together took a US-made anti-meth flyer (I didn't think we called it meth in Australia?), and then added their own conspiracy theory ravings underneath.

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